Passing through the village of Selawik

This was my first trip to "the bush" in my seven years in Alaska. I flew to the small Inupiaq eskimo village of Selawik, where I met some extremely friendly, knowledgable locals who took me 130 miles upriver by boat to the USWFS camp.

It was really interesting to see the mixture of ancient and modern lifestyles so far off the grid, in an environment that presents many of challenges besides distance, such as permafrost. The roads in the town are all boardwalks, and nobody drives highway vehicles, just ATVs. Nothing seems to get thrown away when it's so expensive to get new things shipped in--the place is full of old machines and other items to be used in industrious ways in the future.